Cold

Tom, the neighbor, says that summer is over when the needles start to fall from the pine trees... as of last weekend, the needles are falling. And it is definitely getting colder in Tahoe.

Caren and I are spending our weekend nights sleeping on a full size inflatable mattress. It is comfortable enough, but doesn't insulate real well given that it is laying on top of a floor that is uninsulated thanks to the bear that pulled the insulation down in the crawl space. I'm sure that he made himself quite a cozy little bed, but he definitely made our bed a little less cozy. Those cold mornings in bed make me a little uncomfortable. Uncomfortable in the sense that I feel time ticking away. We are running out of weekends to get the house buttoned up before the snow starts to fall.

All the comforts of home? This is what amounts to our bedroom furniture. We are holding off on putting anything permanent in until we get the painting and flooring finished.

The plumber is supposed to be in the house this week to fix several odds and ends in the wet wall between the kitchen and bath. We are hoping that he gets all the work completed so that we can insulate and put up the pine paneling in the kitchen this coming weekend. That, should we get it accomplished, will go a long way towards buttoning the house up. At least then we will be able to run the furnace without feeling like we are attempting to heat the entire Tahoe Basin.

Next on the to-do list will be insulation in the crawl space. That's a job I am not looking forward to, but with a little luck I will be able to wrangle Kelby into sharing it with me.

Speaking of cold... as of last Friday evening, Caren and I are the proud owners of five... yes five, refrigerators. There are two at the house in Davis. I say at because only one is in the house. The other one is on the back porch--a little project that Caren started a few months ago, but has yet to finish. There are two in the Tahoe house. One is brand new, furnished by the bank after it took ownership of the place. The other we just purchased as a temporary measure. And the fifth refer is in pieces, some of it in the back yard in Davis, some of it at All American Powder Coating being refinished--a little project I started and have yet to finish.

The refrigerator that the bank put in is great, but it is too large and too modern to fit into our kitchen plans. I've moved it from one side of the room to the other several times depending on where I am currently working. I finally decided that I've moved it too many times. It needs to go, so we put an ad on Craigslist. In its stead we purchased a used dorm style fridge off of Craigslist. It is much smaller and much easier to move around. We'll keep it until I finish restoring the 1930's GE Monitor Top refrigerator that will be a permanent fixture in our kitchen. More on that little project in a later post...

The extent of our kitchen furnishings... Our newest little fridge suits our needs much better than the big one the bank left us. Caren thinks we paid too much for it, but $40 bucks seems like a steal as long as I don't have to push, pull, and pry the full size one around anymore!